Growth and its repercussions

Growth is great, but it comes at a price. Once you grow beyond about 20 employees, managing a business and getting everything done in time becomes increasingly complicated. Let’s go back to where it all started.

When your office was your dining room table and your partner in your start-up was sat opposite you, communication was simple. As you outgrew your dining table, you moved into small offices, then larger ones, and as you did, your ability to communicate with an ever expanding team was diminished. Where once a quick chat would have sufficed you now find yourself spending hours in meetings.

Time delay starts to cause issues, perhaps you now don’t hear about a problem until it’s too late. Inevitably, decision making slows or becomes based on ‘out-of-date’ information. Gradually as a company grows, efficiency dwindles, operating costs increase leading to reduced profit margins.

It reminds us of Newton’s Second Law of Motion – “The acceleration of an object is dependent upon two variables – the net force acting upon the object and the mass of the object.” In our language it simply means that, as a business grows, it takes more and more effort to get things done.

Back in the days of your dining room ‘office’, if you wanted to change something you could simply say “let’s do this differently.” But the same doesn’t apply to an office block with 100 employees.

Remember Newton again: “The greater the weight (or mass) of an object, the more inertia it has.” The larger your company the more inertia it will have and will require more force to create movement or change.

People tend to be change averse. If the change is seen as an intrusive action by management, with no reason or explanation, they’ll have no motivation to carry it out. It’s always easier for them to do something the way they have always done it, rather than go through the effort of learning a new system.

However, there are ways you can combat this.

The first is to involve your employees in the process of change. After all, it’s likely that they know more about the day to day running of things than a management team that’s stuck in meetings all the time. Tapping into this knowledge makes a lot of sense. Plus, if it was their idea, they are far more likely to take it on-board and make it a success.

The second is to explain how the planned change will affect them and what it means for the business and its customers. Getting everyone’s input on how to make the business more successful seems obvious. It builds engagement and loyalty and often results in better ideas. And, of course, if the bottom line is that without this change, they probably won’t have a job, they deserve to know.

If you are struggling to implement change in your business, and would like to discuss how we can help, why not give us a call on 01905 380008? We can work with to help you to improve the efficiency of your company, ultimately improving your bottom line. Contact Efficient Thinking Solutions today, and we can help combat your company’s inertia.